The schedule for the society’s spring lecture series is now complete and contains something to suit all tastes!
It will begin on 9 February 2023, at the Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh, when we hear from Professor David Purdie on the subject of Prince Charlie and his Doctors. The doctors concerned are Rattray, Threipland and Archibald Cameron, the last Jacobite to be executed, hanged in 1753. On this occasion, David will be joined by the heirs of these three, namely Lachlan Rattray of Rattray, Andrew Murray-Threipland, and Donald Cameron, younger of Lochiel. Our speaker is a respected historian and folklorist, an honorary fellow of the University of Edinburgh, but his main career has been in medicine and it is as a professor of surgery that he is best know, and as the former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Unviersity of Leeds.
9 March will see a talk from Roddy Maclean on Inverness and its environs: a ‘typical’ Highland landscape? and on 12 April we will be joined by Badenoch historian Dr David Taylor, who will speak on the theme of Toppling Statues and Reputations: by what criteria should we judge people in past societies? The latter two lectures will take place via Zoom.
Saturday 6 May will see the Coronation of His Majesty The King and this will be followed by an event to celebrate this once in a generation occasion. The details have yet to emerge, but the society’s annual Spring Lunch will be replaced by a Coronation Lecture followed by lunch, when Elizabeth Roads LVO will speak on the Coronation Rite in Scotland. Elizabeth is the Secretary of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle and has recently retired from a 45 year career with the Court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms, most recently as Snawdoun Herland and Lyon Clerk and Keeper of the Records.